


Appetence

by yoshizora



Category: Xenoblade Chronicles 2
Genre: Asphyxiation, F/F, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Canon, heavily implied masochism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 06:18:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora
Summary: "You really are my kind of girl."





	Appetence

**Author's Note:**

> there's not much of a point to this besides me indulging my own thirst

“They call themselves Torna.”

Mòrag looks up from the report, eyes narrowed. They’d suffered heavy losses— two dozen dead soldiers, a good number of incapacitated Titan weapons, and an entire cargo of Core Crystals stolen right out of their grasp. Needless to say, she’s not in a very good mood, and the soldier standing before her gulps as he nervously waits for her response.

“Torna… one of the old Titans that had been felled in the Aegis War. Did you manage to find any other information about this group? Their numbers, for starters?”

The soldier hangs his head. “No, ma’am, regrettably. We— we did the best we could to cut casualties and get out of there…”

She closes her eyes for a moment. Normally, she’d chide him for fleeing the battlefield, but judging from what she’d been told of the brutal attack… she supposes they’re lucky that there had been survivors at all. All they have is a name of whatever group had gone up against them, but at least a name is a start.

“What will Indol say about this?” the soldier asks.

Good question. News of the theft might even perturb that seemingly unbreakable calm of the Praetor. Actually, a part of Mòrag is doubtful that the Praetorium would offer reinforcements for the next due shipment of Core Crystals in the end. Uraya would probably take it the wrong way, should they find out, and she knows how much the Praetor values Indol’s position of neutrality between all the nations.

As far as Mòrag can predict, Mor Ardain is on its own for this one. She sighs and places the papers down on her desk. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think they’ll help us?”

“No,” Mòrag bluntly says. “I’ll deal with this matter personally.”

“Special Inquisitor—“

“Thank you for your report. You’re dismissed,” she says, suddenly too tired to speak to him any further.

“Y-yes ma’am. Thank you, ma’am!” The soldier salutes and leaves.

From the corner of the room, Brighid, who had been silently leaning against the wall the entire time, walks over to Mòrag’s side. She lightly places a hand on her arm.

“It would be foolish to take on this task all by yourself, you realize.”

She does realize. According to the report, the attack was carried out by a single Driver with a single Blade, and all their soldiers with their superior technology and Titan weaponry and their own Blades couldn’t stand a chance.

But she can’t send more soldiers out to their inevitable deaths. This is… something Mor Ardain will have to deal with alone. This is something she’ll have to deal with alone.

“That’s why I have you,” Mòrag says with a crooked smile.

Brighid nods in understanding. “I’ll drag you away from the fight by force, if it comes to that.”

“Hopefully it won’t.”

“Don’t you dare do anything foolish, Lady Mòrag.”

Somehow, inexplicably, her mood is already lightening. She leans her hands against the desk and silently chuckles under her breath. “Of course, Brighid.”

 

* * *

 

Two whole weeks pass before they finally hear of a credible sighting of that Driver that had attacked their transport ship. It’s not a very certain lead, that civilian seemed rather uncertain and not all there when questioned, but their description of the Blade accompanying that Driver is too close for Mòrag to dismiss the tip-off.

And so with nothing else more than a word of caution from the Emperor and Brighid at her side, Mòrag sets off to the craggy wastes of the Titan’s lower back, where the sunlight struggles to find its reach and the cliffs are too treacherous for any ports. Few monsters roam this area. All is relatively silent save for the rumbling groans of the Titan’s movements.

“Why would they be _here?_ ” Brighid muses out loud. “There’s nothing but dust and dirt. Perhaps if they were searching for a well-hidden hideout…”

“… They’re expecting us.”

“—Lady Mòrag.” She sharply looks to her Driver.

“Didn’t you realize it as well?”

Brighid frowns, brows furrowing. “I… had some suspicions.”

“Yet you chose to allow me to continue onwards.” Mòrag takes a deep breath. The slopes of the cliffs they’d been following lead to a plateau, hidden from the glare of the afternoon sun by massive outcroppings of stone that jut out above them. If Mor Ardain should choose to lean backwards, they’d slip right off and plummet into the Cloud Sea.

“I won’t let you die.”

“Have more confidence, Brighid.”

She had been furious when the report came in of the attack— of this group, using the name of _Torna_ , and for days she could think of nothing more than defeating them and dragging them by the ankles to face justice, to make them pay for all the Ardainian lives they had stolen alongside their Core Crystals. It had been an uneasy and restless time. Her fury was easy enough to contain before they finally received that tip-off that lead them here.

But now, for reasons she can’t fathom, her heartbeat is steady and there’s nothing but an eerie sense of tranquility as Mòrag takes slow steps across the narrow plateau.

There, at the other end, stands a slight figure. The unmistakably inhuman silhouette of a Blade looms behind her, brandishing four weapons at the ready.

Brighid silently activates their affinity link. Mòrag takes a deep breath, never breaking her stride as they draw closer to the pair. Her heart is beating no faster than it had been, but each pulse is like a heavy drumbeat in her chest.

“The _Flamebringer!_ ” The Driver shouts, her voice echoing off the sheer cliffs. “And the Jewel of Mor Ardain! You came alone? Perfect.”

“And what of yourself?” Mòrag shouts back.

“Yeah, obviously.”

She shouldn’t trust her. This is the Driver that had murdered their soldiers aboard that ship. Yet Mòrag feels no doubt— this is no ambush, and no one else from that group called Torna lies in hiding. They’re the only ones here. Mòrag comes to a stop, close enough now that she can see that the Driver is a young woman who hardly looks older than herself, but far enough to keep a safe distance between them as they size each other up.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Brighid steps forward, subtly trying to place herself between them and Mòrag. “Why did you lure us out here to meet alone?”

“I’ve heard the rumors,” she drawls. “Everyone’s heard ‘em. You’re the strongest Driver with the strongest Blade in the entire damn Empire. I got a little curious, so what?”

“So you wanted to test yourself against us.”

“Hah! Kinda close, but no. I’m gonna kill the mighty Flamebringer and take _you_ for myself,” she says matter-of-factly. “The Empire’s Jewel would be a great addition to my collection.”

The telltale cues of Brighid’s growing rage burns into Mòrag, urging her to end the tense exchange and just fight. Her composure, so calm and sure before, is beginning to crack. She draws her swords. The other Driver is hefting up what looks to be a cannon, and her Blade readies itself with all those weapons.

“By the way, the name’s Patroka,” she calls out. “Just so you know what to scream when you’re begging for your life.”

With that, she fires the first shot.

Mòrag easily dodges the burst of fire and sprints towards her, boots kicking up dirt and the wind whistling in her ears. Brighid isn’t far behind her. Patroka almost looks surprised at how _fast_ they are— good, but the startle is short-lived and Mòrag’s swords clash with a shield hammer.

Another burst of flames singes her. But the heat is nothing compared to Brighid’s own fires, and they both make a point of letting it be known whose fire is superior with a swirling blaze that traps them in a ring of searing azure.

“Tsk—“ Patroka takes a step back, and is stopped short by the wall of fire. “Hey, Perdido. Can’t you do any better than—“ Brighid draws a swift arc of flames at Patroka. “ _—Let me finish my sentence!_ ”

“I’m taking you in! You will stand before the court martial!” Mòrag parries each weapon Perdido tries to strike her with. “To answer for your crimes!”

“Oh, yeah?!” She shoots another round of flames, but Brighid easily disperses them with her own. Sweat beads on both Mòrag and Patroka’s faces, the clanging of the weapons almost drowning them out. “What if I don’t come along?”

“Then I'll have no choice but to kill you.”

For all those stolen Core Crystals, for her fallen soldiers— for her country, most of all, and their wounded pride. She tosses one of the swords to Brighid. Patroka and Perdido… she can tell they’re holding back. Patroka’s just letting Perdido serve as a wall of aggression and defense so she can stand back to shoot with the cannon, but that means Perdido can’t focus on their ether link.

They’re not even taking this seriously. And that pisses off Mòrag nearly as much as that mocking grin that splits Patroka’s lips apart when she hears those three words.

“ _You!_ You’re my kind of girl!”

Suddenly, the cannon is gone. Perdido shifts his attention to Brighid, and she’s forced away from Mòrag to fight him head-on instead. The circle of fire disperses. In that split second where Mòrag looked away, Patroka closes the gap— a sharp pain cracks across her jaw and Mòrag stumbles back, everything lurching for a moment. She… punched her?

Another sharp crack, and another burst of pain. She hears Brighid cry out her name, but she can’t fend off Perdido long enough to aid Mòrag.

“Ohh, yeah. I changed my mind. I’m gonna take my sweet time killing _you._ ” Patroka grabs the front of Mòrag’s uniform while she’s dazed and punches her again, and again, until blood is freely spilling from her nose and she can scarcely move her trembling jaw.

Blindly, Mòrag throws up her own fist, and to her surprise, it actually connects with something with a gruesome crunch. Her jaw, from the feel of it. Patroka grunts and lets go of her.

“What the fuck—“

The pain is… nothing. Mòrag’s taken far worse during all her years of training, she tells herself, even though her face is throbbing from those deceptively powerful hits (this girl, she’s far stronger than her slim appearance suggests, Mòrag can surmise that much). And she still has one of Brighid’s swords. Mòrag plants a foot forward and swings the blade down at Patroka.

Patroka takes a step back out of reach, but then her eyes widen in surprise as the segmented blades separate and the whip follows through the motion along the ground, extending and snapping outwards. It slices across her cheek, leaving a deep gash.

“Fuck you!” Patroka yells. Yet Mòrag can hear exhilaration underlying that rage, and can see it in that crazed look in her eyes.

She refuses to give her the satisfaction of indulging whatever she’s trying to provoke out of her. Mòrag wordlessly strikes again, using the whip and Brighid’s flames to drive Patroka back, ignoring the sticky wetness of the blood dripping down her chin and soaking into her collar.

Even with four weapons, Perdido’s no match for the sheer heat of the inferno that blazes around Brighid. He’s being driven back as well, unable to find an opening in Brighid’s relentless attacks.

“I’ll take your head!” Patroka is shouting, stumbling and jumping to avoid the strikes of the whip. “I’ll take your head and put it on a stick and march through your precious capital with it!”

“Patroka—“

“Shut the hell up, Perdido!”

“ _Brighid, now!_ ”

They start the attack in tandem, both swords moving in unison and drawing all those scattered blue flames into a concentrated blaze, scorching Patroka and Perdido at the center of a maelstrom. Perdido shouts and falls to the ground along with his weapons, unable to withstand the barrage, but Patroka…

Patroka has a weapon in her hand once more. Not the cannon from before, but a lance— no, not quite a lance? She’s doubled over, gritting her teeth through the incinerating flames and using the new weapon to support herself.

“Perdido, you useless piece of crap! Get up!”

Something in the air changes. Brighid senses this and falters, extending an arm in front of Mòrag to keep her from rushing forward. “Lady Mòrag, wait—”

“How many weapons does that Blade even have?” Mòrag mutters, her mouth still throbbing from the punches. Brighid begins to draw up more flames as a buffer between them, but—

The fires are dying down. Somehow? No, that’s not it, the ether is—

Perdido, suddenly reinvigorated with a new burst of energy that comes from… somewhere, springs forward at the same time Patroka lunges at Mòrag. Again, weapons clash, and again, Mòrag and Brighid are forced apart.

Brighid cries out. Reflexively, Mòrag turns to her just in time to see Perdido knock the sword from her hand and overwhelm her with all four arms and weapons.

“Hold her down, Perdido!” Patroka shouts. Mòrag can no longer even spare split seconds to watch as Perdido restrains Brighid’s arms behind her back and shoves her down to her knees, too busy parrying the swift flurry of stabs Patroka aims at her.

She’s beginning to tire. Patroka notices this, and laughs.

“Is this really what the Empire’s made of?!”

Mòrag lets out a wordless yell of frustration and swings the whip down again, but this time, Patroka anticipates it; in one quick motion, she slices the tip of her blade across Mòrag’s knuckles as her arm is extended.

The sword clatters to the ground. Patroka swings the weapon with all her weight put behind the motion before Mòrag can even glance down at it, violently slamming the pole against the side of Mòrag’s head.

There’s a resounding _crack._ Her cap flies off and Mòrag falls, her skull ringing in excruciating pain and blinding lights swimming in her vision. She’s dimly aware of something hard slamming down upon her chest, most definitely not a blade, because it isn’t stabbing through her, but it _hurts_ and she’s effectively pinned down while she’s unable to gather her bearings and stop the ringing waves of nausea from rendering her immobile.

The shape of Patroka’s silhouette wavers above her like a shadow. She’s saying something that she can’t hear through the muffled ringing, but then Mòrag realizes that the thing pressing on her chest is Patroka’s foot.

“… from this angle,” Patroka is saying. She grinds her foot down, the teeth of her geta digging against Mòrag’s sternum. “But I guess you really are the strongest in the Empire.”

She leans over, peering into Mòrag’s unfocused eyes, and presses more of her weight down. Mòrag weakly coughs and raises shaking hands to wrap her fingers around Patroka’s leg, but she can’t muster any strength to free herself.

“Get… off me…!” Mòrag wheezes, spitting blood.

“You’re making a pretty great face right now, I gotta say,” Patroka says rather casually. “How does it feel to be thoroughly defeated, Flamebringer? So much for being the strongest.”

To that, Mòrag only spits out more blood and glares through the disorienting haze that still persists in her throbbing head. From the corner of her vision, she can see Brighid struggling to free herself from Perdido’s iron grip on her wrists and shoulders.

“… Uhh, did I hit your head too hard?” Patroka wonders out loud when Mòrag says nothing. She stomps her foot down twice on her chest, eliciting a couple sharp gasps, and nods in satisfaction. Brighid’s struggling becomes more frantic as Patroka adjusts the weapon in her grip, carefully aiming the tip of her lance at Mòrag’s throat.

“ _Lady Mòrag!_ ”

“I advise you to keep silent. She’ll only draw it out further,” Perdido quietly says.

But Patroka had already taken notice. She stares at Brighid for several seconds in silent consideration, unmoving, ignoring Mòrag’s feeble attempts to free herself, and looks back down.

The weapon in her hand dissipates. But Brighid’s hopeful relief is short-lived, and she shouts again as Patroka lowers herself to straddle Mòrag’s chest, pinning her shoulders down with her knees, and wraps her hands around her neck.

“Flamebringer— no, _Mòrag_ , yeah?” Patroka says as she slowly tightens her grip. “I gotta admit, this was pretty fun. It’s been a while since I’ve faced someone who actually put up a fight worth a damn.”

Mòrag sputters blood and claws at Patroka’s hands, helplessly writhing and twitching beneath her.

Patroka leans over her. Her hair falls forward like a curtain, blocking Brighid and Perdido from view. “… And I can totally tell you’re enjoying this.”

… What? No, she’s not—

It’s as though her blood freezes to ice all at once. Mòrag’s eyes widen in disbelief and she silently opens and closes her mouth, now pulling more insistently at Patroka’s wrists as the crushing grip around her neck only grows more and more in pressure with each passing second. At this rate, her neck will be broken before she’s even strangled to death. She’s going lightheaded. Bleeding darkness is spreading at the edges of her vision.

But— no, even through the foggy panic saturating all her cohesive thoughts and the thunderous pounding in her head, she’s aware that if Patroka was serious about this, she’d already be dead by now.

Or… or she’s just toying with her. Playing with her food. Mòrag clenches her teeth so tightly together that her jaw is struck with a fresh wave of pain. She’s _not—_

“P-Patroka—“

“ _There_ we go.”

Patroka’s eyes narrow and she licks her lips. Her hips roll downward ever so slightly, just once, so subtly that Brighid and Perdido don’t even seem to notice, but Mòrag definitely felt it. She lets out a choked groan without even realizing. Patroka's grip tightens more at the weak vibrations.

"See? You're enjoying yourself, too."

But her horror won’t seem to turn to disgust, and an ill feeling wells up her gut with the coming of a revelation that she fights to ignore. In a strange moment of perfect clarity, Mòrag is aware of everything; Patroka’s slender fingers constricting her throat, the light being blocked out by the veil of her hair, Brighid’s shouting so muffled and so very far away… that weight, and that _heat_ , incredibly oppressive upon her body.

She shudders, the heels of her boots scraping back and forth against the ground and her fingers still uselessly scraping against the hands around her neck.

Patroka is actually rather beautiful, now that Mòrag can see her up-close.

“You really are my kind of girl,” she murmurs.

Her consciousness is fading in and out in intermittent bursts. Then, abruptly, she can _breathe_ again, but she only gets to take one sharp gasping inhale before Patroka punches her across the face as if there was still any semblance of a chance of Mòrag retaliating.

That weight that had been upon her chest and shoulders is no longer there. Patroka is standing up now, face smoothed over with a mask of boredom, and she looks down at Mòrag with contempt.

She spits on her.

“Let’s do this again sometime, Flamebringer. Perdido! We’re outta here.”

“Patroka? Are you not going to kill her? What about this one?”

“Uh, I don’t remember giving you permission to ask stupid questions.”

“… Right.”

Brighid is unceremoniously tossed aside. She doesn’t even give Patroka and Perdido a second glance as they walk away; she immediately rushes to Mòrag’s side, gingerly pulling her up onto her lap, fingers running across her bloodied face and bruised throat with touches as light as ashes. Mòrag blearily stares up at the ceiling of stone far above them, only half-listening to Brighid’s muttered apologies.

“We… we can’t let them… get away…” she wheezes, gasping and coughing like she’d nearly drowned. Mòrag tries to sit up, but she’s gently pushed back down. Though her head is still spinning and her clarity is still muddied, she can still see the anger and fear etched across Brighid’s features.

“I _know,_ ” Brighid says. “But you’re in no condition to continue fighting.”

“I can still—“

“ _No._ Do you remember what I said? I won’t let you die. You’ve already done all you could.”

She didn’t. She could’ve done more. Much more. Patroka and her Blade are gone and out of sight; all that’s left is the howling of the evening winds and the sounds of her own pained wheezing. The taste of blood is bitter in her mouth. She… failed.

When Mòrag closes her eyes, all she can see is Patroka’s tongue running across her lips and her hands reaching down for her neck.


End file.
